💊 Merck “finds” an Ebola vaccine; Lupin finds an FDA notice

#200 | A vaccine for bees

Hello and welcome back to The Kable for an extra-sweet edition today. A new book, authored by a writer who'd predicted a global pandemic of zoonotic origin way back in 2013, says Covid most likely didn't come from only one animal but it "was a virus being shared among animals" and that we haven't learnt anything from this pandemic to prepare us for the (inevitable) next one.

Having begun on that happy note, off to Uganda where authorities' fear of Ebola spreading to the densely-populated capital Kampala was with good reason. Over the weekend, Ebola cases in Kampala have risen to 14.

In great news from Uganda, a new $500 million manufacturing facility by local drugmaker Dei Biopharma has been commissioned. The plant, Africa's largest, will make biosimilars and generics and also traditional medicines.

In Ghana, the ongoing currency crisis has come for the pharma industry, with the local pharma body, the Ghana National Chamber of Pharmacy, saying it will only sell medicines for cash for the foreseeable future. Pharmacies, private hospitals, and government agencies will no longer be able to avail credit to buy drugs.